For the giggles, I was bound and determined to make my Tau more of a 'knife-fight-y' 'boarding action' army. Amazingly, they are quite good at that, even though they dont get many assault actions normally.

However, in doing this, I found something else that was a hell of a lot meaner...

A large number of our ships have the grav-carriers, letting us bring 2-3 Warden ships. Yeah, these ships are very costly, but I was sticking to my guns, so I shunted a lot of points into making those ships pretty good, while the main carrier was beefed up for the boarding actions/fighting.

But here is the thing, those little Wardens? They are now some of the heaviest hitters I have, not as bad as those Ork escorts with the big Kannons maybe, but, pretty bad.

I slapped the Markerlight upgrade on them, the Seeker Missile, and the additional turret upgrades. Now on top of their main weapons, which certainly aren't bad, they are doing 7 DPS to everything within 3k of them...add in the Messenger craft or my Battleship and they are getting re-rolls on those misses for the mundane things, making sure that fighters, torps ETC are nothing, and that DoT is just shredding other escorts, or stuck in the middle/back of a cluster of larger crafter. It's been pretty ugly.

For those curious/wanting to try it. The main ships I use are the Emissary Dal'Yth with Fire Cast favor, Additional Void Shield Generator, Energy Shields for my ordnance, and the XV-46 Vanguard Void Battlesuit. Skill is the Repair Drone.

The Wardens are as I said, Drone Operator (+3 turrets), Markerlights, Seeker Missile.

To fill out the remaining points I take the Messenger with Imp. Augur Array, Add. Void Gen, Aux Shield Cap.

I'm sure I'm not the only one that tried this, but let me know if there are other versions that work, me, I'm loving seeing the damage those bomber/boarding actions are doing, and just watching their shields/hull melt from the PBAoE.

I am always looking for uncommon ways to spezialise my fleets, (like my Eldar Biel-Tan Melee-Fleet, - with harlequin-upgrade and max out both crews for lighning strikes.^^ Always fun to see what happens, if anyone thinks he can beat my eldarships with boarding, while my ships have around 80 crew, or in other words: "...I AM KAELA MENSHA KHAINE! ).

Right now, i am skilling my Tau-Fleet in the direction of a typical Eldar-Fleet. Full Aircaste, with the extra upgrades for movement- and turingspeed, as well as stealth, trading pure Firepower for speed.

But, i think i make my next Tau-Fleet like your idea, with full firecaste.

Spoiler : :

Steam-Name: "Marilyn Manson"

"We bring only death, and leave only carrion. It is a message even a Human can understand."

it was a very popular build in the betagood thing they nerfed the damage of those turrets i remember them being hell you can get a similar result with the cheapest LC's and water castethe ships being built for artillery staying back and waiting on the niccasars is no issue